Six Flags Magic Mountain Trip Report For 4 Oct 2013

Today was Six Flags Magic Mountain‘s first day of Fright Fest 2013. I stopped by the park to check-in on the Fright Fest preparations, but I didn’t actually stay until nightfall for the Fright Fest activities. I’m going to let them get all the kinks worked out during opening night. I’ll be going back tomorrow night to review everything, with a full report to follow. In the meantime, here’s a trip report from my visit today.

It was incredibly windy today as the Santa Ana winds are in full effect and blowing through town. Unfortunately, that’s not a good thing for the park. Even before I got to the parking toll booth, I could already see signs blown over and lots of leaves and branches strewn all over the roadway that had been blown out of the trees:

The giant inflatable spider that is prominently placed on the side of Colossus as an icon of Fright Fest every year may have been an unfortunate victim of the high winds. Hopefully he’s just deflated for some reason, but we’ll have to wait to find out for sure:

I can’t decide if it looks more like a squished spider or a Chinese throwing star:

There’s a nice new Fright Fest sign over the main gate:

Something new this year is that there will no longer be any safe zones. The entire park is fair game for the roaming ghouls and zombies to try and get you. You’ve been warned:

The excitement starts as soon as soon as you pass through the main gate. You must then go through Demon’s Door, and straight into the depths of Hell:

Your park admission lets you stay around at night for all of the Fright Fest fun. However, you’ll need to buy a special wristband if you want to go through the eight haunted mazes. The wristbands will once again be sold at the Fright Fest booth just outside of the Flags gift shop in the main Six Flags Plaza. You can’t miss it as you enter the park:

The cost of the wristbands vary by which night you are visiting and which wristband you want. I wrote up an overview of the wristband differences and pricing here.

There are several red statues scattered around the main plaza. I’m not sure if that’s blood or lava flowing out of them, but I’m sure it’ll become obvious at night:

Surprisingly, X2 is still closed due to a broken lift hill chain. Sounds like it may not reopen until some time next year:

Even though X2 is closed, the X2 plaza will still be full of people waiting to get into the Chupacabra Fright Fest maze:

Even during the day, some of the scare zones looked a bit creepy to me:

Somebody help me out with this. If the entire park is now fair game for the scare actors, then why are there still labeled scare zones with signs? The whole purpose of the signs in the past was to warn people when they were entering an area with scare actors.

More visible signs of wind damage on the backside of the park. It’s a good thing that stand was heavy because the wind was still trying to blow the umbrella away:

One of the most popular mazes in the park is Aftermath, a huge outdoor maze:

Earl’s gas station in front of The Riddler’s Revenge was being prepped for the Cartoon Network’s Regular Show Fright Zone. It’s not listed on the Fright Fest map and a Six Flags employee working in the area had no idea what it was. I spoke to the people setting it up and they told me it will be a sitting area showing Halloween-themed cartoons from the Cartoon Network. There will also be a special photo op area where you can get your picture taken with some special digital enhancements added to it:

Instead of being prominently displayed in the front of the park with a special Fright Fest wrap like it was last year, the hearse it sitting all by itself behind Lex Luthor. I know the Magic Moments Theater behind it is one of the new mazes, so there will be traffic through here, but there weren’t any Fright Fest decorations anywhere near it today:

I couldn’t pass up riding Psyclone backwards today:

OK, for those of you not familiar with the park, it’s not really Psyclone. They just use the old Psyclone trains (the only wooden coaster trains B&M ever built) to run backwards on Colossus because there are headrests, which Colossus’ Morgan trains don’t have:

Hi, Jodi…I see you working all the way down there:

I met Candice, a long time reader and active participant on this site, for the first time at the park today. I had to ride at least one coaster with her, so we chose Colossus:

As luck would have it, the train stopped in the middle of the structure, just before the end. The other train came to a stop part way up the lift hill. We were only sitting there for about 15 minutes, but long enough for one of the ride ops to hike up and keep us company. It was interesting seeing the ride from this perspective for the first time:

I’ve never seen a spider get tangled up in his own web before, so either this is the world’s dumbest spider, or he’s going to be another spider’s dinner:

Not sure why, but all the sample wood signs have been removed from this display:

Poor guy was probably taking a peaceful nap in the road and was carelessly ran over:

Despite the ‘adults only’ theme later at night, there are still some special kids activities for the younger ones during the day:

Full Throttle was dead when I walked by. The line started halfway up the covered ramp:

The Full Throttle stage has been all decked out for the brand new Fright Fest stage show called VooDoo Nights. For those of you who asked what happened to the spooky tress from last year’s main stage, they are flanking this stage:

Best chandelier ever? I think it just might be:

Finally! You can now use your Season Dining Pass to get some High Octane Wings:

You can also use it at Loaded Dogs, but only on the Western, Nacho, and American Dogs:

On my way out, I saw lots more debris blowing out of the trees and piling up in the road:

I’ll be back at the park tomorrow night to experience Fright Fest first hand. I’ll be enjoying a Fright Feast with the Willoughby’s, including Michael Turco’s magic show, going through all the mazes, meandering through the scare zones, watching the hypnotist, and checking out VooDoo nights. Of course, I’ll also try some of the coasters in the dark. Look for a full write up on Sunday, assuming I don’t sleep through the entire day!

21 Comments

All three of Psyclone’s trains have run on Colossus backwards. I’m not sure which train it is, but one of them is being cannibalized for parts to keep the other two going. Those trains are almost 23 years old now, so they’re nearing the end of their service lives. As for Psyclone backwards, I really did ride it backwards at Fright Fest 1994. (I’ve mentioned that before. It wasn’t bad, but not great either).

Strangely, I have never done any of the mazes or seen any shows at Fright Fest. I should give it a try this time since it looks like they’re upping the game up a bit this year to keep up with Knott’s and Universal.

That’s a hard one to answer. Some people will say absolutely, others will say no way. I think you need to experience them at least once for yourself and make your own call. Personally, I feel that they are if you’re there for the spirit of the event and into having a good time with family and/or friends.

Woohoo! Thanks so much for everything, Kurt! I had a blast riding Colossus, and then of course it decided to stop, hahaha. Now, I just need to actually stay for Fright Fest! I left the park at around 6:15. I was so tired, I could barely lift my legs to walk up stairs.

Got there at park opening and did a lap till about 3, didn’t even bother staying for the Halloween stuff because although they seem to try, it really can be sad going through the SF mazes compared to Knotts or Universal.

Full Throttle was probably the most efficiently run coaster in the park. Really is a bummer when X2 is down, and due to winds, Lex Luther was down too.

I don’t know if it was the weather or my age is starting to come through, but man it was tough getting around the mountain today! After a lap around the park walking up the mountain once or twice I was winded!

I went FF last night 10/4 and colossus was closed. I went and asked the attendants why it was closed and if it would open later in the night, but got the generic answer of “we can’t tell you what the problem is or when it will re-open. I was really disappointed as this is a major reason I come to FF every year. Do you have any info on why it is closed and for how long?